1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is generally related to water renovation and management, and more particularly to weather and terrestrial vegetation-based reservoir renovation and management forecasting.
2. Related Art
Reservoirs and lakes are basins of standing water ranging greatly in size with the flow of water through them reduced below that of the streams and rivers entering. Both “behave” in most of the same ways, are affected by most of the same environmental conditions, can provide most of the same resources, and can require most of the same types of renovation and management. Reservoirs are constructed by human means while lakes are of natural origin. Reservoirs are more often the focus of renovation and management because they are constructed at great expense to serve particular continuing needs. Reservoirs are often constructed in locations where there are few natural lakes. Therefore, reservoirs are likely to be in environments hostile to their continuing existence.
In general, an ecosystem is a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment. A reservoir, though human construction, is an ecosystem and functions much like a natural lake being a system with many interacting and interdependent parts. These interacting and interdependent parts can be both coarsely and finely viewed. The coarser viewed parts include the reservoir and its watershed. A reservoir's watershed comprises other systems connected to the reservoir within its drainage basin including the land (i.e., terrain) and other aquatic systems like ponds, wetlands, and streams/rivers. A watershed is generally ten (10) to one hundred (100) times larger than its reservoir.
The finer viewed parts of an ecosystem include particular species of plants and animals. Finer viewed parts also include the physical and chemical conditions/components like temperature and the dissolved nutrients in the watershed or in the reservoir water. Changes in the structure or functioning of the coarser and/or finer viewed parts of the ecosystem and the ensuing “chain reactions” of these changes affecting other parts is the normal operation of an ecosystem. Certain changes can also lead to undesirable conditions and the problems that society must solve in order to maintain the intended uses of these resources.
More than two million ponds and reservoirs of all sizes have been constructed in the United States this century and many more worldwide. In the United States nearly one thousand (1,000) reservoirs are larger than one thousand (1,000) acres with about half of these being federally operated. The lower half of the continental United States has the greatest number of reservoirs, particularly the central states of Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Texas. A typical Kansas reservoir, seven thousand (7000) acres in size, constructed in the 1970s cost a total of fifty (50) to sixty (60) million dollars.
More than half of the population of the United States receives some drinking water from reservoirs. The economic impact of recreation for reservoirs larger than one hundred (100) acres and the economic impact of all reservoirs in terms of flood control protecting lives and property are incalculable.
Problems in reservoirs today that most often require particular renovation and management actions involve the quality of drinking water, recreation, the water storage capacity for flood control, power generation, and so forth. As discussed above, reservoirs were built where there are few natural lakes. In fact, reservoirs were built to serve the many different purposes that lakes typically provide. Therefore, since lakes do not naturally exist in these locations, it is not surprising that the local environment is often not very supportive of a reservoir's continued existence.
There are few natural lakes in these areas mostly because the soils are naturally very erodible and can be disturbed even more by human activities. Thus, the reservoir acts as a settling basin where the process of siltation deposits soil, clay, and smaller rock particles filling the basin in one hundred (100) to two hundred (200) years. This is the actual projected life expectancy of most reservoirs when they are built, which is far shorter than the tens of thousands of years that most lakes exist. As reservoirs fill with these materials, three to five times more rapidly in their upper basins where the streams enter, the ever expanding shallow zones reduce the quality of the water and habitat as well as the original storage capacity for flood waters, power generation, and recreation. Two hundred of the largest reservoirs in the US are now more than forty (40) years old. Over the next century most of the reservoirs that currently exist will have filled, at least to the point of ending their useful life.
Since reservoirs have already been built in nearly all of the best places, one possible solution to prolonging the useful life of a reservoir is to excavate the reservoir. This solution is not ideal for several reasons. First, excavating the existing reservoir will require moving fifteen (15) to thirty (30) times more material than originally moved to construct the reservoir's dam. Second, it will be necessary to find a close by location to deposit this material to reduce costs. And finally, because so much urban and rural development has steadily surrounded existing reservoirs, it is not possible to simply continually raise the height of the original dam and the contained water level.
Obviously, new renovation and management strategies must be developed and implemented to maintain the intended uses of these reservoirs and extend their life expectancy. What is needed is a way of using past and future weather analysis in the process of projecting future reservoir problems to determine, not only one or more solutions for each problem, but also the timely implementation of each solution. Further what is needed is a way of using past and future terrestrial vegetation analysis in the process of projecting future reservoir problems to determine, not only one or more solutions for each problem, but also the timely implementation of each solution. Terrestrial vegetation, as it relates to weather conditions, are indicators of reservoir water conditions.